Practice Management Consulting and Coaching

Hanses Management is a practice management consulting firm that specializes in coaching practice owners across all of North America. Based in St. Louis Missouri, Hanses Management is owned by long-time practice management coach Mark Hanses. Through in-house visits as well as phone coaching, Mark and his team provide highly tailored consulting programs to solve whatever problems a company is having.

Who Do We Consult?

Mark has consulted an extremely wide variety of small businesses, from auto mechanics to florists. However the main focus of the company is on consulting independent practice owners in healthcare including dentists, veterinarians and chiropractors. Having done this for over 20 years, Mark has mastered each area of practice and can provide tailored programs that address the exact needs of the owner, regardless of the field. From highly specialized periodontists to general dentists to large animal vets, Mark addresses their specific marketing, coaching and practice management needs.

Why Practice Coaching?

In today’s economy, a practice owner can’t afford to let things coast. With inflation on the rise and less consumer spending, a practice must expand just to keep up with it all. While at one time practice growth may have seemed optional, today it is a necessity. A practice that sits still or is stagnant is eventually heading for collapse. Today, businesses can be as successful as any time in history, but they must continually expand in order to make it.

Practice owners were trained in medicine, not management. They went to school for years and became professionals in their chosen fields. However, very few of them got the same level of knowledge in running a business. How many practice owners do you know who are MBAs? How many practice owners do you know that actually interned at running various types of businesses before they started their own?

You see, a dentist or a vet, when they start out, they go to school and learn the basic theory and practical. They get their degree and they become a doctor. Then, more likely than not, they work as an associate under someone else for a period of years until they’ve practiced professionally in the real world. It’s at this point that they are likely to go start their own practice. They now have a wealth of experience as a doctor and are confident that they can handle whatever is thrown at them.

Yet, they didn’t do the same thing as a business owner. They didn’t study all of the theory and practical of running a business, dealing with staff, marketing and selling different types of products and correctly organizing management systems in businesses. They didn’t apprentice somewhere on different types of businesses and get familiar with it and confident in their skills as a business owner. No, they just opened up a practice. Maybe they took a couple of classes and read a few books, but for most of them it’s totally trial by fire.

And people wonder why the practice coaching industry is thriving. It has to! There is a HUGE demand for practice coaches. The doctors out there running their own business aren’t necessarily passionate about management anyway. That’s why they’re doctors! They are passionate about patient care. As they should be! And so a practice coach exists in order to help the doctor solve the business problems that he runs into.

A really good practice coach not only puts out the immediate fires, but will actually help put in place management systems that enable the practice to operate as an ORGANIZATION and grow into the future.

A truly great practice coach doesn’t just implement systems, he teaches the practice owner and his staff the fundamentals of practice management, helps them implement the systems themselves and puts the doctor in control of his own destiny. This is the difference between giving a man a fish and teaching him to fish. If you can help that practice owner understand the core principles of business management and then help HIM implement them, you have created someone who can run his own practice from here on out and isn’t “consultant dependent.” He now knows what to do on his own…and if he wanted to, he could actually start “consulting” his friends and colleagues.

Why Hanses Management?

With more than 20 years of hard-won experience, Mark Hanses has seen it all. He has dealt with some of the worst problems one could encounter in a practice, and has handled them successfully. He has personally visited practices all over the United States and Canada, training their staff, working in the office and straightening out the confusions. We’re not talking “philosophical knowledge” here. We’re talking real-world working knowledge of what happens in a practice and how to fix it.

We don’t make a practice owner “consultant dependent.” Sure, we help him sort out all the problems that he’s running into. And of course we’re going to walk him through all of his problems, every step of the way. But our goal is much larger than that. We don’t consider it a success when fix something that’s been bothering him for a long time. Our measure of success is when we’ve taught the practice owner himself enough that he can now fix his own problems in the future and has a growing practice. We are different than many other consultants and coaches in that don’t just consult, we TRAIN. And our train isn’t only “book work.” We hang in there with the doc and help him actually get it implemented in his own practice.

What does Hanses Management DO?

The first thing we do is we tackle the problems where they matter the most–what is affecting the survival and bottom line of the company right now? Let’s get that fixed first. At least let’s get it calmed down to the point that we can function. Once we have the most pressing concerns of the office addressed, we now engage in an organized program of training in the basic systems of management that need to be in place for any business to function. And these aren’t just nice good ideas; they’re vital if the practice is going to expand as an ORGANIZATION, not just a bunch more work for the owner.

We fly out to your practice and look it over. We note what needs to be handled right away and what can be handled later and we prioritize our plan of attack. We then train up your whole staff on the basics of practice management and organization, so that everyone is on the same page in the practice. All of this training is done in your office, taking into consideration your patient schedule…for obvious reasons.

After this we begin the implementation steps–the apprenticeships. This is where we have specific programs tailor-made to your practice to help get the systems IN, and move them past being a “good idea.” So many times in business there are great ideas. Everyone’s got an idea. However, the reality is: “Can it be made to work in the real world? Will it increase business revenues or make a saner life for the practice owner once implemented?”

We fly to the practice several more times throughout the course of the consulting program–sometimes as many as 5 or 6 on-site visits to the practice–in order to ensure that all the components of the management system are really implemented. And in-between, we’re on the phone with you and your staff to ensure that regular progress is being made on checklists that have been created just for your office. We want to see the office making regular steps to an organized future and we go the extra mile to make sure that it does.

The Extra Mile

Speaking of the extra mile, we are passionate about what we do. If it isn’t right, we’ll make it right. We believe in what we do and chose this particular path in life because it’s what we WANT to do. There is more money that could be made elsewhere, but few areas of life more rewarding than personal coaching. You have no idea how amazing it is to see a practice blossom before your eyes, or see someone start achieving their goals and living their dreams because of your work.

We like doing this. This is more than just a job for us. And because of that, you can absolutely count on the fact that you’re not just another “account” or another “client.” You will have some of the most personalized service that you’ve ever experienced–and not just because that’s company policy. We genuinely care. It’s hard to be in a business like this unless you do.

Mark Hanses, the owner of the company, makes it his personal mission to take care of each of the company’s clients, even when the clients are working with one of Mark’s staff. Is that client achieving their goals? Are they getting what they need out of the program? Are they experiencing the changes and growth that they wanted to?